St. Augustine Beach man charged with DUI manslaughter in deaths of two St. Augustine residents

Report: Man's blood alcohol level was 3 times legal limit

Correction: The initial version of this story failed to mention St. Johns County Sheriff's Deputy Donato Santoro, who was the lead investigator in the DUI crash. Deputy J.D. McGinnis was the secondary investigator.

Report: Man’s blood alcohol level was 3 times legal limit

A St. Augustine Beach man faces charges of two counts of DUI manslaughter and one count of driving with no license in the deaths of two people in April.

Carlos Antonio Bueso, 27, is in the St. Johns County Jail in lieu of bonds totaling $225,000.

Deputies with the U.S. Marshal’s Regional Fugitive Task Force arrested Bueso at a home in the 3600 block of A1A South on Friday afternoon.

The arrest comes after a six-month investigation by Traffic Deputy J.D. McGinnis into a single-vehicle crash on April 17 on County Road 13 South, near Cowpen Branch Road in the southwestern corner of St. Johns County.

At the time, Bueso was driving a 2006 Nissan Altima northbound on C.R. 13 South around 8:20 p.m. when he ran off the road and struck a tree, the original police report said. Bueso and the two passengers, John Michael Currier, 26, and Sharon M. Pallett, 40, both of St. Augustine, had left a party together and were returning home when the crash happened.

Neither of the two victims was wearing a seat belt and both were ejected from the vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene by St. Johns County Fire Rescue personnel, the report said.

Bueso, who was wearing a seat belt, was taken to Flagler Hospital with non-life threatening injuries, said a Sheriff’s Office spokesman.

Toxicology tests revealed that Bueso had a blood alcohol level of 0.249, three times the legal limit to drive, along with cannabis in his system, according to the report. He also did not have a valid driver’s license.

Sheriff’s Office records show that Bueso was arrested by the St. Augustine Police Department on disorderly intoxication charges in May 2009. He was also arrested by the St. Augustine Beach Police Department on charges of possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia in July.

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